Micro teaching

Nama : Hifni Khotibul Umam

Nim : 171230153

How to Approach Speaking and Listening through Drama

1.      How to Begin with Teacher in Role

Why use teacher in role?

The most important resource you have as a teacher when using drama is yourself. Learning demands intervention from the teacher to structure, direct and influence the learning of the pupils. One of the best ways to do that in drama work is to be inside the drama. Therefore, at the centre of the dramas that we include in this book, is the key teaching technique that is used, namely teacher in role (TiR). This chapter will set out approaches to TiR and give examples of how it works.

Preparation for the role

 In preparing to be this kind of storyteller the teacher must have made particular decisions about this child.

·         Begin by asking the class out of role what they want to ask the child and the order of those questions.

·         Before the drama session, decide what attitude you are going to take when questioned by the class.

Of course, all these things are possible from the text of a book; however, the pupils will be defining what is important, which are the most important questions to be asked and how to handle the mood of the storyteller, whose views on the events may be very different from those of the audience whom he addresses. Be clear about his attitude towards being left behind, what has happened and how he feels about it

2.      How to Begin Planning Drama

a number of key planning decisions and approaches. These are:

·         How to begin a plan

·         The frame of a drama – first example ‘The Governor’s Child’

·         The frame of a drama – second example ‘The Wild Thing’

·         How did this drama evolve? ● The ingredients of planning

·         Learning objectives

·         Strong material

·         Roles for the pupils

·         Tension points – risks – theatre moments

·         Building context and belief-building

·         Challenges and decision-making

Planning brand new dramas is complex and, while we hope to unravel some of the complexity in this chapter, the best starting point is using tried and tested dramas first. Then we assemble all the ideas that make up the frame for a drama. A new drama is a difficult beast and takes time to develop and grow. We must never forget that drama is an art form. As such we need to consider the way that planning drama is a creative and dynamic activity, not done by just following a set of procedures.

The frame of a drama

Goffman uses ‘frame’ to refer, essentially, to the viewpoint individuals will have about their circumstances and which helps them to make sense of an event or situation and to assess its likely impact upon themselves as individuals. Translated into terms of process drama as a genre of theatre, we could say that Goffman’s frame constitutes a means of laying in the dramatic tension by situating the participants in relation to the unfolding action. (Bowell and Heap, 2001, p. 59)

The frame is a dynamic, interrelated and complex weaving of all the other ingredients. It has pre-text, which is derived from the stimulus material (see Figure 2.1). In planning a drama we have

to write the main frame, the scenario, in a way that indicates the relationship of the component parts and how the interactions provide tension and potential.

The ingredients of planning

. Creating a drama is very much like cooking. It is easy to serve up a fast food meal, which has very little quality and goodness, but it is a more detailed, careful and thorough process to create a quality meal from scratch with good ingredients. Our ingredients include the following.

Learning objectives

The learning can be in any of five areas:

·         Language Development – the medium of drama and hence the key impetus to Speaking and Listening (see ‘How to Generate Quality Speaking and Listening’ p. 41).

·         Spiritual, Social, Moral, Cultural, Personal – there is usually this capability in any drama

·         Content – the curriculum, focused on any subject – we have highlighted possibilities in our examples for English, History, Technology, Art, Geography.

·         Art Form drama – the more the class do drama the more they understand the form and the more they can manipulate and help shape the work.

·         Thinking Skills – drama models the mental moves that underpin our thought processes: actions and consequences, being logical about decisions, giving reasons and arguing positions. The very reflective nature of the work, going out of role to examine the meaning of situations and events in the drama, promotes metacognition.

Strong material

We need a stimulus to learning, to focus the exploration. This my be a piece of writing with key learning points, that are usually unresolved by the writer of the original material. These often lie in the PSHE curriculum area. look at our drama ‘The Wild Thing’ from Where the Wild Things Are. Maurice Sendak shows us Max, a boy who is very imaginative, but whose behaviour is very wild. It also hints at him learning something important on the island, how he misses his home and his mother.

Roles for the pupils

 The class need to be framed up as a community, where the class work together supporting each other and working for the same aims. This builds their ability to communicate with and understand each other, the best basis for all learning.

Tension points – risks – theatre moments

Tension provides the momentum that pushes the class, demands a response, engages them. It involves taking calculated risks;

Building context

Usually having one main location helps the drama to be properly focused. With ‘The Egyptians’ we did not have a single location in an early version. It started with the tomb and we planned to spend time creating it and its wall paintings as the early belief building activity.

Decision-making – key developments in the drama which provide the class with challenges

In any drama there will only be one or two main decisions that have to be taken by the pupils; by main decisions we mean where the direction and outcome of the decision is crucial. Inexperienced practitioners often think that they must give the pupils a decision at every turn, what to do next, whom to meet, where to go. This will lead to chaos, with too many possibilities to manage. There are teacher decisions and pupil decisions and we have to be clear about the timing and nature of both, why one should be the teacher’s and why another should be the pupils’.

The drama conventions, strategies and techniques

There are many techniques for structuring the stages of a drama. Variety of activity for the class is important but each chosen technique must fit the moment and do a particular job. They may:

·         create context

·         build belief in the roles and therefore the drama

·         focus learning

·         help explore a situation and deepen understanding

·         help to reflect on the meaning of the event

Types of drama

There are two main types of this sort of classroom drama that have evolved: ‘living through drama’, where the pupils face the events at a sort of life rate in the here and now, and ‘episodic drama’, or strategy-based drama, where the class are led by the teacher in creating situations and events through specific techniques or strategies and where chronology is more broken.

What about endings to dramas?

The most difficult thing can be resolving a drama satisfactorily in the time and to the satisfaction of the class. This is to some extent in the planning but mostly in the handling of the drama. The class must always go away feeling they have achieved something. They need to have solved the problem.

 Avoid that easy ending. We must be satisfied ourselves with the feel of the drama at all times; it must feel authentic. It is better for the class to have struggled with the issues and to see possible futures without the problem role necessarily changing or the dangers being completely avoided.

3.      How to Generate Quality Speaking and Listening

 Authentic dialogue – teacher and pupil talk with a difference

What is speaking and listening ?

Speaking and listening is the most important communication form that human beings use. Really effective oracy, developmental speaking and listening, will help pupils build their language, their understanding, their ability to handle their own world, making sense of it and who they are in it. It has to be an interaction with others where both sides are contributing. When a pupil is speaking and listening properly, he or she is able to see how each contribution arises from what has already been said.

Dialogic teaching

This is one of the most interesting, potentially powerful and new concepts being promoted in educational circles in the UK. This approach to oracy in the classroom raises the profile of talk, speaking and listening, from the poor relation of English in the National Curriculum, to become the central focus, the pivot of learning across the curriculum.

What does dialogic teaching demand of the teacher?

Drama certainly demands these as well. One of the key changes that drama brings is a different position for the teacher. When the teacher uses role herself she is able to dialogue in a very different way with the pupils; she leaves teacher talk behind. If the teacher is the young boy, Daedalus, who has taken his father’s secret project design, without his permission, and the pupils are the family servants, then they have important decisions to make about what they do with this knowledge. They will talk to Daedalus in a way that they can never talk to a teacher. So the teacher is able to talk and interact with the pupils in many ways and with many purposes. The teacher engages with the class and their contributions help build the fictional world.

How is listening of high quality taught through drama?

Drama is the creation of meanings in action and pupils have to struggle all the time to make sense of what is going on around them so that they can engage with it. They have to make sense of the fictional situation as it develops. Unless pupils listen they do not know what is going on. The teacher can provide surprises, challenges, interesting people to meet in the forms of teachers in role; pupils can provide models of language use for each other because lead pupils begin to take initiative and provide input.

4.      How to Use Drama for Inclusion and Citizenship

Drama’s inclusion is embedded, first, in its dialogical approach to teaching and learning. This is reflected in two contracts that form part of its rubric. These are:

1.      Everyone will take part, including the teacher both in and out of role.

2.      We will treat members of the group with respect by listening to them and allowing them to express their views without fear of derision or humiliation.

Secondly, the subject content of dramas can have specific learning potential to give a voice to groups whose ideas may not be heard easily in the real world. More of this later. So inclusion will always be found in drama’s approach to learning and it may also be part of its subject content.

What can drama offer in terms of inclusion?

·         Drama offers ‘new opportunities to pupils who may have experienced previous difficulties’ (Ofsted, 2006, p. 7).

·         Drama takes account of pupils’ varied life experiences and needs by using fictional contexts and roles which enable pupils to explore the underlying issues safely.

·         For some pupils drama may offer experiences that are different to those they experience in the real world, for example taking the role of the outsider or the role of the one in charge.

The relationship between inclusion and citizenship

If drama by its very operational values is an inclusive way of working and if the contents of some dramas are in themselves examining the nature of the outsider, then Citizenship and PSHE are an integral part of the drama experience. The QCA booklet on Citizenship for the primary age groups defines the area as follows:

The PSHE and Citizenship framework comprises four interrelated strands which support children’s personal and social development. The strands are:

·         developing confidence and responsibility and making the most of their abilities;

·         preparing to play an active role as citizens;

·         developing a healthy, safer lifestyle; and

·         developing good relationships and respecting the differences between people.

(QCA, 2002, p. 4)

5.     How to Generate Empathy in a Drama

A working definition of empathy

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, the director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge, suggests that ‘empathizing is the drive to identify another person’s emotions and thoughts, and to respond to them with an appropriate emotion’ (2003, p. 2). Here we see a behaviour-specific definition that divides the process into two distinct phases: identification and response.

Empathizing does not entail just the cold calculation of what someone else thinks and feels Empathizing occurs when we feel an appropriate emotional reaction, an emotion triggered by the other person’s emotion, and it is done in order to understand another person, to predict their behaviour, and to connect or resonate with them emotionally. (Baron-Cohen, 2003, p. 2)

The components of empathy

Component One – the cognitive

component Baron-Cohen suggests that there are ‘two major elements to empathy’ and the first of these is the ‘cognitive component: understanding the other’s feelings and the ability to take their perspective’ (2003, p. 28).

Component Two – the affective component

‘The second element to empathy is the affective component. This is an observer’s appropriate emotional response to another person’s emotional state’ (Baron-Cohen, 2003, p. 28)

6.     How to Link History and Drama

Learning objectives: History

Victorian Britain:

A study of the impact of significant individuals, events and changes in work and transport on the lives of men, women and children from different sections of society. (QCA/DfES, 2000)

Learning objectives: English, Speaking and Listening

In English pupils have the opportunity:

To present a spoken argument, sequencing points logically, defending views with evidence and making use of persuasive language To understand different ways to take the lead and support others in groups (Year 5) To use a range of oral techniques to present persuasive argument To understand and use a variety of ways to criticise constructively and respond to criticism (Year 6).

History as a metaphor for now – the global dimension

It is important that we make the connections between issues in history where they remain issues for us over time. The issue of street children is an example of one of these. In Life on the Streets: Children’s Stories the BBC published stories of homeless or underprivileged children from St Petersburg, La Paz and Delhi. Their stories echo the issues that are raised in the history drama – exclusion, poverty and survival

7.      How to Begin Using Assessment of Speaking and Listening (and Other English Skills) through Drama

What is assessment?

The primary aim of assessment is to provide information about the development and achievement of those involved in the teaching and learning situation. Assessment records evidence related to students' abilities, both actual and potential, and charts their progression. The intended audience of assessment feedback should always include the students themselves. (Clark and Goode, 1999, p. 15)

What is the purpose of the assessment?

·         give feedback to the pupil

·         report to another teacher

·         report to a parent

As we have indicated, the first is vital. Pupils need to know what they are doing, how they can improve and to be encouraged in speaking and listening, after all it is the primary communication skill.

How do we collect data more formally

A simple starting point might be to grasp the level of comprehension of a passage read to the class. One way of doing this is to go into role as a character from the book and take questions from the class. You will get a better understanding of what the class have understood than if you ask them questions about the passage. You can note afterwards key exchanges and contributions by members of the class.

 Assessment in this context is the detailed study of episodes of speaking and listening. We need to describe what we see and teachers need to operate as researchers of the dialogue in their classrooms. Educational research is becoming more encouraging of detailed description of events, particularly when looking at classrooms in the action research method we are advocating.